My Heaven
by teh 4th freakee fairet
Summary: Perry must face something that they knew could never happen but when the unthinkable ensues, how long will he keep running? JD can only hope that it won't be too late when he finally comes to his senses...  twoshot, NOT slash
1. Part One

**Okay, I wrote this whole thing at like, three in the morning from a sudden inspiration so if there are any stupid grammar/spelling errors, blame it on the no sleep-too lazy to read over it right now thing. It's the only small-chapter thing I've achieved. The beginning is kinda shaky but I love the rooftop scene. (And yes, I got some ideas from _The Sight_, if you've read it.) I can't quite tell if it's OOC or not...**

**Summary: **Perry must face something they never thought would happen, that they knew could never happen but when the unthinkable ensues, how long will he keep running? JD can only hope that it won't be too late when he finally comes to his senses...

**Rating:** It's pretty safe. I couldn't find any bad parts, but just in case, I'll say K+.

**Pairings**: _Not_ JDCox. It's more of how JD and Perry helped each other without realizing it.

Regular text.

"Speaking."

_Thinking_.

(Author's notes within story.)

* * *

**My Heaven**

_"Stay near the light ... I am there. I am in the rain and the skies. I am in the trees and the flowers. I am in the sunlight and the moonlight too."_ -The Sight

_Part One:_

"Where-" Perry burst into the room, panting, "Where's Newbie?" Greeting his question were several tear-stained faces. The older doctor glanced around hesitantly, his mind knowing but his heart defiant to the facts, and approached the motionless figure in the hospital bed.

Starlight illuminated his pale lips, his darkened eyelids and the tubes and wires sprawling over his body. Perry looked unable to move as he controlled his emotions then he swallowed and picked up JD's chart with a trembling hand. It only took a few moments for him to look up from the papers.

"' ... causing the irreversible end to all activity of John Dorian's brain,'" Perry read off the paper then glanced around and knew what they were all thinking. Before it could be certain, several more tests had to be run but Perry could see the worst possible situation unfold behind his eyes. "He's ... brain dead?"

Twenty minutes ago, Turk had called Perry over his cell phone just as Perry had stepped into his apartment. Before Perry could snap for bothering him while he was off, Turk had spoken, voice thick and choking with emotion.

"Dr. Cox, you need to get down here ... It's JD."

Perry had just been able to catch the sobbing somewhere near the phone before Turk had hung up. Ice had spread through his blood. He had recognized Elliot and Carla in the background. And now, as Perry hovered at the end of the bed, he demanded answers. With Turk's arms curled around Carla, he let his cheek rest on her head but he couldn't find his voice. The chances of snapping were just too great. So, Elliot wiped her eyes free of mascara tracks and looked up.

"He was driving home, on his scooter," she began, her voice also heavy, "and he slid on a patch of black ice. They said if he'd just gone a few more feet to the right, he'd have landed in the grass but ... his scooter lost control on the gravel on the shoulder and he fell off and ... Oh, god, he cracked his skull open!"

All the air seemed to have been suck out of the room and Perry swayed. Before he collapsed, he fumbled for a chair and pulled it over then fell, legs numb and rubbery. But, this annoying kid, he was just another intern, he wasn't _really _a part of his life. JD hadn't seen his personal life and known the details ... Well, actually he had. He'd been there for all the big stuff even when he'd tried to beat him off. Even with how girly, irritating and thick he'd been, Perry had to admit, he'd still been there.

Suddenly, Perry stood up. He couldn't face this. It didn't matter what they said, that he maybe was running away. Newbie couldn't die while he wasn't there, right? So if he left the problem, everything would be alright.

Without another word, Perry swept out of the room just fast enough for them to miss his shaking fists. Carla looked down, eyes void of anymore tears as she muttered miserably.

"We all knew he would do this," she said in an oddly angry growl. "He couldn't suck it up for once and face the situation even for JD. He's a-a spineless-"

"Just give him some time," Elliot muttered. Perhaps the shocking reality had cleared her mind. "Maybe ... Maybe, he'll realize what he should do." Turk flashed her a questioning look but found he didn't have the strength to really think about her response. He figured if he just hovered over the surface and didn't let his mind wander to that morbid reality ... he might be able to get through this without breaking down.

It was several days before Perry reentered JD's room and immediately upon his return, he wanted to leave again. But, Dan had already seen him and was motioning him to come closer. Perry found that, despite the fact he was bad-tempered and ornery enough to fend off anyone, he couldn't deal with grieving people.

Dan was a mess. He usually had a unruly air to his demeanor but this was way beyond the norm. His clothes were wrinkled and hanging off his body as if he didn't care enough about himself to change or leave the room. Perry glanced away, as if looking for some escape, but he sat beside the older brother anyway.

With his head in his hand, Dan was silent for several moments. Perry wondered if the stress had finally gotten to his head and he'd fallen asleep when suddenly, a broken voice grated out. Perry leaned forward in his chair and strained to catch the older brother's voice, apparently rusty from nonuse.

"You probably have spent more time with my brother than I ever did," Dan stated and Perry didn't know what to say. "I'll ask you straight forward. Did Johnny really like working here? I mean, when I visited, he seemed happy, but did he seem to want to do ... something else, like he wasn't satisfied with this job?"

Perry still wasn't sure what to say. Had he ever paid attention to JD's feelings? Perry gave an inward snort, knowing he could never admit that he'd always noticed how happy it made JD to watch one of his patients walk out of the hospital in perfect health, how crushed it made him to watch his patient, anyone's patient die despite years of being a doctor. Even with that, Perry had never questioned whether or not Newbie had enjoyed the job. JD might've been a little emotional for the job but it was the job he'd wanted.

"Yeah," Perry managed to choke. He hadn't gave more than a grunt of greeting to anyone in days. Maybe he was taking this worse than Dan, just in a different way. "He loved being a doctor."

Later that night, Perry paused at the nurse's station to switch off charts when a hand fell on his. Perry glanced up, eyes glazed slightly in numbing exhaustion that he craved so, and was surprised to see Jordan's fierce eyes softening a shade. She seemed to see every thought that wandered in the back of his mind, the ones that didn't involve patients or which medications he needed to prescribe, and Perry felt exposed. Before he could respond accordingly with anger, her softer voice pierced his every thought.

"Your shift ended hours ago. Working yourself to exhaustion in order to avoid the problem won't work. Never really has, you know. Go talk to him, even if he can't hear you. I know you'll regret that you didn't later." Her eyes flashed as if there were more that she wasn't telling. "You know it too. We all know it."

As she walked away to leave a stunned, fatigued Perry where he stood, she paused and glanced over her shoulder. "If you haven't heard yet, the kid's brother, he decided to pull the plug next week."

This could've been when Perry snapped because every sound within hearing distance became no more than a muffled murmur. The sound of the clipboard clattering to the counter top brought everything roaring back and Perry said something about getting some air to the pretty, young nurse who threw him a concerned glance. Something in his heart wanted him to run as far away as possible and yet at the same time, he didn't want to get to far from JD in case ...

He stumbled at a sprinting pace, brushing by people he'd intimidated too much in the past to try and stop him, into an empty stairwell in search of the isolation on the roof.

Once he got there, he realized his plan was a tad flawed, not in the sense that it was below freezing and he wasn't wearing a jacket but in the sense that his heart ached at all he saw. The gray sky unfurling its feathers and stroking the airless void above, the sun dying in fiery, golden glory on the horizon, the neon city rippling with the far-away people who had no idea at all ... Perry felt an odd, tender passion for everything that existed, everything that JD would never see again, everything the promising, young doctor would be losing next week ...

Perry fell to his knees against the wall as his throat constricted painfully and tears burned his eyes in the frigid twilight. "Damn kid," he choked, gripping the ledge as he tried and failed to get to his feet, the city swimming before his eyes. Perhaps the exhaustion had caught up to him, perhaps those blasted tears were finally surfacing. "S'pose he got under my skin."

It took several minutes for Perry to recover his composure and drag his sleeve over his eyes. If he just waited a bit more, the red and puffy look would fade and he could get up, go to his car and leave this hospital for a good while...

_No_. Perry squared his shoulders and glared around, slightly disappointed that no one was there to witness his turning point. _Gotta face this, and then be _done _with it_. Even as he thought this to himself though, he had the strangest felling that he wouldn't be done with it.

Ever.


	2. Part Two

**I-I really thought I updated this like, last year. I've had the second part written for quite possibly years. I apologize. I've been busy.** **Anyway, I hope it's not too sappy...**

**Summary**: Perry must face something they never thought would happen, that they knew could never happen but when the unthinkable ensues, how long will he keep running? JD can only hope that it won't be too late when he finally comes to his senses...

**Rating**: It's pretty safe. I couldn't find any bad parts, but just in case, I'll say K+.

**Pairings**: Not JDCox. It's more of how JD and Perry helped each other without realizing it.

Regular text.

"Speaking."

Thinking.

(Author's notes within story.)

* * *

  
**My Heaven**

"_Stay near the light ... I am there. I am in the rain and the skies. I am in the trees and the flowers. I am in the sunlight and the moonlight too_." -The Sight

_Part Two_

When Perry got back downstairs, the hallways were somewhat cleared and as he approached his protégé's hospital room, it was all so surreal. His footsteps echoed about him, the faces of hospital staff and patients alike flitting past but none sticking in his mind, and as he entered the darkened doorway, he was suddenly by JD's bed but it had seemed to have taken forever to reach it.

Dan had left some time ago. Perry felt awkward there, like someone as cold as him shouldn't be at the deathbed of someone so affable and sensitive. Self-consciously, he looked over his shoulder then closed the door so no one could see him baring his soul. He shifted his weight, unsure of which way to go before plopping himself into the chair directly to the right of JD's head. Perry looked up over JD's face and winced.

His skin was ashen pale but his eyelids were dark and soft-looking. Perry's eyes located and identified each tube and wire, his thoughts touching the doctor part of his mind on its own accord. He could imagine the doctor who had done it, tall and faceless, leaning over JD and pushing in the various objects that would carry on the tasks like breathing and such that his brain could no longer do. The very thought of someone doing this to JD, things JD had probably done to countless people in the past, settled badly in Perry's gut.

He didn't know where to begin. Should he apologize for the years of verbal abuse? Should he praise the skills that could've developed into something great? Should he just say how lucky was to have known him? After a few moments of contemplation, Perry felt the beginnings of a migraine build behind his left eye. He groaned and leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands and muttering to himself.

This was a lot harder than he felt it should be.

An eternity later, Perry lifted his head and saw his surroundings come into focus, realizing he must've dozed off at some point.

Everything was blindingly white, and featureless. There seemed to be only two planes, the sky of pure light above and the white floor, which stretched endlessly in all directions. Perry looked about, his body free of the aches and pains that plagued him in the waking world.

It was a slowly dawning surprise to see a figure sitting beside him, slouched happily with feet flat on the ground and knees bent. Perry rolled onto his back and sat up too, feeling out of place in his clothes, which were absolutely grubby in comparison to this person who simply glowed. Perry noticed the dark hair, the twiglike-figure and the gray eyes shining as bright as stars.

"Hey, Dr. Cox," JD greeted him softly. Perry just stared, tipping his head to one side, because it seemed his ability to form words, coherent or otherwise, had just been shocked out his very brain.

He was clad in scrubs, white like newly fallen snow bathed in moonlight, and Perry wondered why for a brief moment. Because it seemed to him if he were to go to Paradise, he'd wear anything _but _the clothes of that life-consuming hosipital.

"JD," Perry finally managed and could barely restrain himself from grabbing his shoulders to prove to himself that he was real, "JD. I don't know- Should I say?- I really-"JD held a finger up to Perry's mouth to signal silence, which Perry graciously, if confusedly, fell into.

"I know Dr. Cox, and I have to thank you, really, for everything. All those things you taught me, they're invaluable. I could tell it took a lot for you to talk to me, but I knew you'd come eventually. I'm proud, Dr. Cox, to have had you as a mentor."

Before he could stop himself, Perry asked, "Why are you- why do you sound like you're saying a ... a good-bye speech?"

For a moment, a sadness entered JD's smile and Perry's heart ached terribly, because he knew what JD was going to say. He didn't want to hear it though, and that odd feeling he'd felt on the roof top burned his eyes with tears.

"Because-" JD looked down. "This is my last stop. I had to wait for the right time to tell you that my body- it's done. You know that as well as I do. But before it gives, I had to let you know-" JD looked steadily into his gaze, "I couldn't have asked for a better teacher, a better friend. Thanks and ... See ya later."

Perry watched JD stand slowly, glimpsing the details of his new attire- white sneakers, a shining stethoscope- and accepted his hand that pulled him effortlessly to his feet. JD glanced upwards, as if expecting rain or something, but just before he stepped away, Perry laid a hand on his shoulder. "Wait, before you go," Perry asked hesitantly, though he wasn't sure why, "Why'd you get white scrubs?"

He smiled at the question. "Well, I chose scrubs because it defines who I was on earth. I am a healer, as I was then, as I am now." Then he grinned with his teeth, which were -surprise surprise- dazzling, too. "And why white? Well, it's sort of the team color."

Then JD stepped back, squared his shoulder and, though it was hard to tell against the dazzling sky of pure white, spread the wispy wings that appeared upon his back and lifted gracefully from the ground.

"Thanks," JD called down with a wave, smiling with bittersweet joy, "for everything. TTFN, Ta Ta for now!"

With the image of JD spiraling up and away till he became a gray speck on a white canvas, Perry jerked into wakefulness. In the wake of his dream, chaos seemed to have followed. People ran about him, bumping his chair to the side, shouting orders as the first rays of dawn light streamed in from the window but what stood out above all, the beep from the heart monitor hitting an endless note.

Perry got to his feet, letting the other doctors work in front of him. He knew they were in doctor-mode and yet, he felt in his heart that this patient's body was done here and that no matter what they did, fate or God or whatever had already decided it.

He was right. In a few minutes, the heart monitor was shut off, the breathing tube and IV removed and the blanket pulled over his head.

JD had died.

---------

Perry felt an ice-cold sliver of grief wedged in his heart as a wet track formed on his cheek. An ignorant, merciless wind whipped hair about and burned their exposed faces. They sobbed into each other's shoulders or bore their pain with silent tears, grief renewed as the coffin was lowered into the ground and the pastor spoke warm words on JD's life.

But somehow, Perry felt his heart lighten for he'd seen JD in that dream and though Sacred Heart had lost a most promising young doctor, he'd gone to heal other hurts in another place. Perry had brushed his hand over the gravestone, narrowing his eyes as a fiercer wind stung them, and wondered what JD would say now if he saw them all tearing themselves up for words never spoken and actions never taken.

"That night," Turk said quietly beside Perry without removing his gaze from the grave, "That night JD left us, I had a weird dream, that JD wanted to say good-bye and-" Turk seemed to want to say more but emotion strangled him.

But Perry looked up at the gray sky, his chest flooded with that strange tender passion in the knowledge that JD might not be watching the same sky, and replied, "Me too. Maybe we all did." Turk looked surprised but he didn't question Perry. He just stared at the cold dirt and held Carla close when she approached him. Turk had known JD the longest, after all.

Perry looked to his other side and saw Dan weeping openly into his hands. Feeling a new strength that felt more compassionate than aggressive, Perry squeezed the older brother's shoulder. Dan looked up with eyes filled with such raw pain that Perry forced himself not to wince.

"Dan, give it time," Perry advised softly, then took a chance with his next words. "You know this isn't where it ends." To Perry's wonder, Dan remained motionless.

"Yeah," he replied. "That's what JD told me a couple nights ago ..."

Perry didn't want to give it too much thought, just in case his doctor-mind found a way to disprove the dreams, but figured that with such a sudden, violent end, JD still needed to contact them, and had saved him for last- _'This is my last stop.'_ - and had gone to the others during the scant nights of sleep before Perry's vigil by the hospital bed, to pass his message to each of them on.

He continued to work and, as each of them found, the pain lessoned. Perry found every now and then, as he went from patient to patient, he would glimpse a flash of light from the corner of his eye that seemed to emite excess amounts of a friendly, hyperactive vibe that was oh-so familiar ... Then Perry would turn to the patient and smile, saying warmly:

"It seems you have a very good doctor with you today."


End file.
